Network communications may transfer data by breaking data into smaller pieces, or data packets, to avoid clogging communication channels. Communication protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP) may further encapsulate the data packets into frames to include additional information and/or ensure data integrity. Data may be transmitted and received, in the form of frames, across one or more networks by proper network devices. The size of the largest data packet that can be communicated in a single network route may be referred as maximum transmission unit (MTU). Due to the encapsulation of data packets, the MTU size is related to, but may not be identical to, the maximum frame size that may be transported on a specific layer of a communication protocol.
Network device manufactures may set different default MTU sizes in hardware which may not be configurable. Network service providers may also set the MTU size to a size not matching those specified by network hardware devices. In addition, network service providers may add overheads in Ethernet frames such as multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and 802.1Q (Q-in-Q) which reduce the overall MTU size available for data packets. The information related to the MTU size may not be known in advance or readily available before users send data. If the MTU size is too low in a network route compared to the size of data packets in a transmission, frames may be dropped, causing a delay of subsequent data packets and an increase of latency. Larger data packets may be desirable for an efficient transmission since each frame can carry more data than overheads.
The RFC 2544 standard provides methodologies using a set of predefined frame sizes to evaluate network performance including throughput, frame loss and latency. However, RFC 2544 does not provide enough granularity to characterize a precise value of maximum frame size in a network data transmission. The learning of a precise maximum frame size may be essential for a proper configuration of a network or an end-to-end network design. Transferring data across networks at the precise maximum frame size may allow network service providers to gain a competitive edge.